Octagonal or New Sighting Mill

On 29 December 1796, the provincial government of Holland decided to jointly drain the Nieuwkoop and Zevenhoven lakes. The eastern part, up to the Meije, the Nieuwkoop polder and Noorden, was not reclaimed. Since this polder consisted largely of water (the current Nieuwkoop lakes), it was called the wet polder, in contrast to the reclaimed polder Nieuwkoop. The Nieuwkoop reclaimed land was drained with 18 mills, three paddle wheel gangs four-high and three jacking alleys two-high. The paddle wheel passages all grinded out on the bosom of the Rhineland or even Amstelland. The auger tunnels did not: they fed into the wet polder or water in common with it (the ring canal). It was not only for this reason that the drainage of the reclaimed land was closely intertwined with the wet polder. In case of emergency, the upper mills of the paddle wheel gangs could also grind out on the ring canal and thus on the wet polder.
At the time of the reclamation, the wet polder was drained by two mills, the Ziendemolen and the Meijemolen. These mills not only drained the wet polder, but were also upper mills for the reclamation. Hence, in 1797 and 1803, agreements were entered into between the reclaimed polder and the wet polder, whereby the reclamation took over the two mills of the wet polder and would take care of the drainage of the actual wet polder for a fee. The capacity of the two mills turned out to be too small and that is why in 1809 the reclaimed mill had a third mill built not far from the Ziende and the Meijemolen: the Achtkante or Nieuwe Ziendemolen. On August 6, 1843, this mill was struck by lightning, but no fire broke out.
When the reclaimed land cleared its wind pumping station and replaced it with steam pumping stations, the need for the three windmills in the wet polder as an upper mill was no longer necessary. In 1895 the polder Nieuwkoop en Noorden, the wet polder, took over the three mills from the reclaimed land for 15,000 guilders. However, the three mills would continue to drain the ring canal and the upper land of the reclaimed land.
In 1921 a pumping station was built on the site of the (Old) Ziende Mill, after which the Meije Mill was completely demolished and the Octagonal Mill was largely demolished. The stump of the Octagonal mill continued to serve as a residence, while the original interior was largely preserved.

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